Delta Reeling A Bit, But Brutes Are Still Out There

You could liken the California Delta in its present state to a champion boxer who's just absorbed a hard shot to the jaw. Things might be a little foggy for a moment or two, but you can bet he's going to charge back with a vengeance.

The Delta was pounded pretty good over the previous 2 weeks by the 400 anglers who fished the Western FLW Series event here. During 4 days of competition, they combined to catch 13,767 pounds worth of bass from the labyrinth of channels that serves as a vital cog in the transport of water from the northern part of the state to the arid southern portion.

That weight figure is impressive, but it's nothing the Delta can't handle. Some claim that this place harbors more 5-pound-plus bass per acre than any body of water in the world, and the ultra-important tide schedule is more favorable for the Bassmaster Elite Series anglers this week than it was for those who fished the Western FLW Series event.

There's a good chance it'll take more than the 93-05 that Arizona's Michael Rooke caught to win the FLW Series tournament in order to hoist the Elite trophy on Sunday.

"The fishing's just starting to get good," said western stalwart Gary Dobyns, who finished 27th last week. "The Delta wasn't up to its potential for the Series – it was really good in only a few places.

"I expect those (Elite) guys to do better."

Before delving into the bite, here's some info on the system itself.

BassFan Lake Profile

> Name: California Delta
> Type of Water: Tidal network of channels and tributaries fed by five rivers that surrounds a series of agricultural islands
> Surface Acres: 61,000 (approx. 1,000 miles of navigable water)
> Primary structure/cover: Tules, weeds and grassbeds, some rock (levees) and wood
> Primary forage: A veritable smorgasbord that includes bluegills, golden shiners, threadfin shad, crawdads, crappie, baby steelhead, baby stripers, Delta smelt, etc.
> Average depth: 10 feet
> Species: Largemouths
> Length limit: 12 inches
> Reputation: A longtime giant-bass Mecca with a prolific number of fish over 5 pounds
> Weather: The wind howled on the final practice day, but the forecast for the tournament is primarily sunny, with daytime temperatures pushing 80 degrees and moderate winds to 9 mph. Some clouds are possible for the weekend.
> Water temperature: 65 to 70 degrees
> Water color/visibility: Slightly stained – 1 foot in some places, 4 to 5 feet in others
> Water level: Fluctuates about 3 feet per day this time of year due to the tides
> Fish in: 0 to 8 feet
> Fish phase: Pre-spawn and spawn
> Primary patterns: Flipping plastics and jigs, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, crankbaits, topwaters, Senkos, sight-fishing.
> Winning weight: 95 pounds
> Cut weight (Top 50): 36 pounds
> Fishing quality (1=poor, 5=great): 3 for the Delta
> Biggest factor: The ability to adjust with the tides
> Wildcard: Monster bites

The Past

The Delta figures prominently in tournament-fishing lore. It's the place where recent Bass Fishing Hall of Fame inductee Dee Thomas invented flipping, and it kicked out the largest fish ever caught in BASS competition – a 14-09 giant hauled in by Mark Tyler in a 1999 Western Invitational.

Robert Lee, a resident of nearby Angels Camp, proved that it's a place where experience counts for a lot by winning four straight BASS events from 1997 to 2003, including the last Bassmaster Tour event here 4 years ago.

"I can't point to a specific angler, but the guys who've been there before and the really good flippers should do well," Dobyns said.

Tyler has a strong resume here, with three Top 6s in Opens and Invitationals over the past decade. He finished just 61st in the '03 Tour event, though.

Skeet Reese and Ish Monroe are two other native Californians who've fared well. Reese finished 5th in both the '03 Tour event and '01 Invitational, and Monroe has ended up outside the Top 21 just once in the six BASS events that've been staged here.

Besides Reese, other members of the '03 Top 12 in this year's field are Jimmy Mize (2nd), Kevin VanDam (8th), Peter Thliveros (10th) and Mike Wurm (11th).

The Present

Several anglers BassFan spoke with reported getting fewer bites in practice than they'd anticipated. Part of that is likely due to the pressure on the fish applied by the Western FLW Series field, and there was also a cold front that moved through early in the week.

"It's been kind of hit and miss for me," said Denny Brauer. "I've caught a few decent fish, but not anything you'd call giants.

"In a lot of areas it's been kind of hard to get bit. It's more spotty than I'd thought it would be."

Californian Greg Guiterrez concurred.

"I'm fishing a lot of good stuff that should be prime at this time of year, and I'm just not seeing any big bites," he said. "I might have to end up slowing way down to get them to pick it up.

"I'm sure it's due to the whiplash from the 200-boat field and the weather on top of it. But the weather's supposed to stabilize and things should pick up and get happy."

Mize said there's more grass in his primary area than there was in '03, and there doesn't seem to be as many fish there.

"We're here a couple of weeks earlier (on the calendar) this time and that could be the reason, but I'm not getting near the bites I did back then. I'm getting some big ones though, and I think I can catch a big stringer (on Thursday).

"If you can get 10 to 12 bites a day, that should give you 20 pounds or more."

The Tides

The Delta, which separates the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys from San Francisco Bay, is heavily influenced by tidal movements. The high and low extremes arrive about an hour later each day, and the last 2 hours of an outgoing tide are considered the optimum time for fishing because the bass move from flooded cover out to the edges.

The average variance in the water level at this time of year is approximately 3-4 feet.

"They'll have a lot better tides this week than we had last week," Dobyns said. "If I could've picked a week to fish, this would have been it.

"We never got low water in the afternoons (last week) – we just never got to that tide," Dobyns added. "When it happens, there can be just a phenomenal topwater bite. It turns the fish on a lot more and they bite a lot better."

Anglers whose patterns are tide-dependent will often move from spot to spot with the tide in order to give themselves more time in favorable conditions.

In high water, techniques such as flipping and throwing spinnerbaits, swimbaits and crankbaits will be the best bets.

The Sight Factor

With the weather pattern on a warming trend again, more and more fish will be moving to the spawning grounds. The quality sight-fishermen will pick some off to boost their bags, but it's unlikely that the tournament will be won from the beds.

Bear in mind that sight-fishing is productive only during low tide. Also, the bigger females in the Delta will often move away from beds and into depths where they can't be seen when the water is low, leaving the smaller males to guard the nest.

"You can never win on the Delta purely by sight-fishing," Monroe said. "There's never been an event longer than 1 day that was won that way."

Also, the water is somewhat dingy, and strong winds on Wednesday made it even more so. Nonetheless, the most skilled lookers could turn a good bag into a great one with one big, bedding sow.

"It's not my cup of tea, but I'm sure guys will be able to find some back in marinas and places like that," Brauer said.

Franks Tract

Quality bass can be found everywhere on the Delta, but there's one locale that harbors more than any other: the collection of sloughs, cuts, islands and channels known as Franks Tract. Conditions there are prime year-round, and because most tournaments launch from there, it's constantly restocked.

However, it can get overrun during large-field tournaments.

"It's got grass, clean water, bait, contours, a hard bottom – everything a bass could ever want," Monroe said. "But I'm not a big Franks Tract fan because so many people fish there.

"It can fish 20 boats comfortably – everybody will have little areas to themselves. Thirty is possible, and I've seen 40 in there before."

Mize spent most of his time there en route to his runner-up finish in '03, but he didn't find the same type of bite this time and has no interest in battling crowds.

"You'll see everybody in the tournament go by there at one time or another," he said. "I might hit it for an hour or so (on day 1), but that'll probably be about it.

"There's miles and miles of other water to fish here."

Top 10 to Watch

In no particular order, here are BassFan's picks for the Top 10 to watch in this event.

1. Skeet Reese – With four Top 10s (including two 2nds) in his last five events, he's red-hot, and his record here is stellar. The end of his 4-year win drought could come at one of these next two events in his home state.

2. Kevin VanDam – His lack of familiarity with the Delta didn't exactly render him helpless last time he was here. The circumstances under which he wouldn't be a Top 10 pick are unfathomable right now.

3. Ish Monroe – The Bay Area native knows the Delta inside and out and he almost always does well here. He'd like nothing better than to notch a victory in his back yard.

4. Kelly Jordon – He's struggled badly in his three events since November, but that mini-slump won't go on forever. He should be able to find – and catch – a few big spawners that'll lead to a strong finish.

5. Mark Tyler – He's compiled a great ledger here, and after a bad finish to the '06 campaign, he got this season off to a solid start with a 20th at Amistad. He probably won't catch another 14 1/2-pounder, but one a day that's half that size should allow him to keep his momentum.

6. Mike Iaconelli – He's focused on winning his second straight Angler of the Year, and he can handle a flipping stick. He rattled off seven straight Top 20s at the beginning of last year, and a similar streak could be in the making.

7. Greg Hackney – He's never been here before, but he quickly fell in the love with the place. He had a lot of fun in practice, his confidence is buoyed by the thought that his next cast could end up in the mouth of a 12-pounder, and he's a stud on tidal fisheries (he was 12th and 4th on his last two visits to the Potomac River).

8. Tommy Biffle – He hasn't finished outside the Top 25 since his win at Oneida last July, and all of the great flipping water puts this tournament right in his wheelhouse.

9. Fred Roumbanis – He's developed quite a reputation as a swimbait master. This is his home water, and the swimbait bite has been good recently.

10. Dean Rojas – He has strong experience here, and nobody's better suited to capitalize on a hot surface bite at low tide.

Launch/Weigh-In Info

Anglers will launch at 6:50 a.m. each day from Buckley Cove Marina in Stockton. Weigh-ins will start at 3 p.m. in the same location.

Notable

> To read about Michael Rooke's winning pattern from the Delta FLW Series, click here.

> BassFan Big Stick John Murray's record on the Delta has run the gamut. To read his report, click here to go On Tour With The BassFan Big Sticks.

> Monroe said the biggest difference between the Delta and Texas' Lake Amistad (site of the season opener 2 weeks ago) might be the number of bass that go home with the recreational anglers who catch them. "Nobody eats them here. For every bass that gets eaten, there's a thousand stripers that get cooked. I might see a guy keep one here about once every 3 months. At Amistad, you see it every day."

> Rojas is savoring his return to the Delta, and not just because of the fishing. "I've had a great time looking at all the wildlife. I've probably seen half a dozen sea lions so far."

> Hackney's initial impression of the Delta was that it's "a tidal Okeechobee. The way it sets up and fishes, I really like it. It's got cover, grass, emergent vegetation and more grass. You couldn't ask for it to look any better."

> Look for BassFan's day-1 coverage of the event tonight after weigh-in concludes.

Weather Forecast

Here's the Weather Channel's forecast for the tournament days:

> Thurs, March 22 – Sunny – 77°/46°
- Wind: From the N at 6 mph

> Fri, March 23 – Sunny – 77°/49°
- Wind: From the NW at 7 mph

> Sat, March 24 – Partly Cloudy – 77°/50°
- Wind: From the W/SW at 8 mph

> Sun, March 25 – Mostly Cloudy – 73°/48°
- Wind: From the W/SW at 9 mph